I don't know if it is because I am still recovering from my addiction to Girl with the Dragon Tattoo etc. or if it is because Swedes are expert authors.
The book is divided into five sections and covers a period of two weeks. At first the days are indicated using their proper names but at the end the days are simply called "a day later", "another day later", "yet another day later", and finally, "and yet another day later". I believe this is done in order to reflect the protagonist's detachment from society's ordering and naming of time and maybe also to illustrate his separation from the life he had been leading.
The story is set in modern day Sweden and is packed with suspense. Although the Swedish names of the people and places are unfamiliar and were difficult for me to remember, the fault lies with me as they are necessarily Swedish and add to the realism and exotic nature of the novel. Suspense is created not only through the use of the unfamiliar world of drugs and prison but also through graphic description which is detailed though not burdensome nor over poetic. The first lines begin,
"An hour to midnight. It was late spring, but darker than he thought it would be. Probably because of the water down below, almost black, a membrane covering what seemed to be bottomless. He didn't like boats, or perhaps it was the sea he couldn't fathom. He always shivered when the wind blew as it did now and Swinoujscie slowly disappeared. He would stand with his hands gripped tightly round the handrail until the houses were no longer houses, just small squares that disintegrated into the darkness that grew around him. He was twenty-nine years old and frightened." p. 5
The reader is immediately gripped by the references to the night's unnatural darkness, a sea without bottom, houses that disintegrate and a young man who for some reason is frightened.
Ya, ya, many novels are packed with suspense -- what makes this one exceptional?
I really like and respect the two central characters: Ewert Grens and Piet (Paula) Hoffman.
When we meet Ewert Grens he is struggling with his grief.
"He missed her so much. The damned emptiness clung to him, he ran through the night, and it gave chase, he couldn't get rid of it, he screamed at it, but it just carried on and on...he breathed it in, he had no idea how to fill such emptiness." (p. 13)
He is a walking wounded -- trying to carry on, trying to cope. He is real.
Further, he is loyal and driven to do what is right.
"The inner strength he had, the one that was always there and forced him to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it until he had an answer, he knew exactly where it was coming from this time. The older warden. If the two people who had been taken hostage were both fellow prisoners, he wouldn't have been so motivated, he wouldn't have felt the same driving edge...He didn't care much about one of the naked bodies on the workshop floor, he felt nothing for the prisoner who in theory could be in cahoots with the hostage taker. It wasn't something that he was proud of, but that was how he felt. The warden, on the other hand, who wore the uniform and worked there, an ordinary representative of the workplace that the general public hated, an older man who had given his life to this crap, shouldn't have to deal with such deep humiliation, a person who believed they had a right to take his life, a gun to his head." (p. 323)
Once again Grens is real. He self-aware and although he doesn't like everything about himself, he doesn't sugar coat it or pretend that his flaws don't exist.
He is also a man of integrity. When the people around him are selfishly more concerned about saving and even promoting their personal careers regardless of the cost to those around them, he stands up and calls others out on it.
"'Lie to your colleagues. Burn your employees. Give some crimes immunity so that others can be solved. If that is the future of policing...then I'm glad it's only six years until I retire.'" (p. 460)
He recognizes that there are some things that he can't change but refuses to become complicit.
Piet (Paula) Hoffman is really the protagonist of the novel. Like Grens, he too faces inner turmoil and is flawed -- he struggles with guilt and self-contempt because he is lying to his wife and sons whom he dearly loves.
"Zofia had not stopped talking when he put down the phone down. She had continued to talk to him in his head...and was there beside him with her frustration on the seat in the empty car. She wasn't to know that he was the sort who lied. He shivered. It was always cold in these sterile garages, but this particular chill came from within, a chill that neither clothes nor movement could change. There is nothing that chills like self-contempt." (p. 113)
Like Grens, Piet is introspective and self-critical. There is no self-deception. He recognizes his flaws and although he sometimes second-guesses the difficult choices he makes, he strives to redeem himself through the dangerous risks he takes in order to build a better future.
Hoffman is also street-smart and extremely intelligent. On the street, it is these qualities that prevent him from being killed as an informant.
"Everything had gone wrong. A person had been shot through the head. He studied Mariusz; the man with the shaved head and expensive suit had killed someone only a couple of hours ago, but showed nothing. Many he couldn't, maybe he was being professional. Hoffman wasn't frightened of him, and he wasn't frightened of Jerzy, but he respect the fact that they had no limits; if he had made them nervous, suspicious of his loyalty, the shot that had been fired could just as easily have been aimed at him. Anger chased frustration chased dread and he struggled to stand still with all the turmoil inside him. He had been there and he hadn't been able to prevent it. To prevent it would have meant death for him." (p.29) He is a survivor and he uses his intelligence to his advantage.
His intelligence also allows the writers to weave a very complicated, suspenseful and entertaining plot.
Nonetheless Three Seconds is more than just plot and character. The theme of the destructive effect of deceit is pervasive. Hoffman personifies this with the very nature of his life.
"A lie that was never ending. He, if anyone, knew all about it. It just changed shape and content, adapted to the next reality and demanded a new lie so that the old one could die. In the past ten years he had lied so much to Zofia and Hugo and Rasmus and all the others that when this was all over, he would have forever moved the boundary between lies and truth; that was how it was, he could never be entirely sure where the lie ended and the truth began, he didn't know any longer who he was." (p. 181)
Lies lead to death.
So what is it that I like about this novel? The exotic setting? The continual suspense? The realistic, flawed, struggling characters? The intricate plot? The nobel theme?
Simply put, all of the above.
An awesome read!
